


In Your Hands

by RainySpringMorning



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Angry Erik, Calm Down Erik, Charles Being Concerned, Cherik - Freeform, Erik has Issues, Fluff and Angst, Fluffy Ending, Honestly Charles What Are You Thinking, M/M, Past Torture, Telepathy Stuff, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-01-04
Packaged: 2018-05-11 14:58:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5630731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainySpringMorning/pseuds/RainySpringMorning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“My trust is hard to come by,” Erik answers quietly, averting his gaze from the sharpness in Charles’. He’s slightly uncomfortable, discussing such a tender matter in such close of range to the telepath. Focusing on the light pressure at his temples, he closes his eyes. </p><p>Disclaimer: X-Men and all associated characters belong to 20th Century Fox.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Your Hands

**Author's Note:**

> This is one of those fics that initially began as one thing and turned into something else halfway through. Most of my writing tends to go that way - the stories I tell twist and bend into shape as the words come, rather than being pre-planned. I wasn't sure how this was going to end, but as things grew darker and more menacing, I knew I wanted to aim for something with the same light feeling this started out with. That being said... if references to past torture is something that might bother you, I'd recommend having a friend read this one first. I myself don't like sensitive topics and... well, everything that Erik would have gone through is pretty scary. I did my best to keep things subtle but gave it the rating I did for a reason. Now, enough with the prattling! Please enjoy.

Erik admittedly enjoys listening to Charles when he begins prattling away about his studies in genealogy and human evolution, and his theories about others of their kind. It isn’t so much the _content_ in which Charles is describing – it is the soothing drone of his tenor, the barely concealed fascination that highlights the rise and fall of his accent, and the way his mouth and tongue forms the Latin words and phrases of his area of focus. Erik finds his frequent pauses and occasional errs as his mind goes away at work to be oddly charming, and although he sometimes doesn’t understand a bloody lick of what Charles is yammering on about, he makes it his goal to keep the telepath speaking with an arrangement of questions that either sound alright when he makes them or, sometimes, incites a look of confusion and a rehash of the recently described topic of conversation.

The Englishman’s accent is steady and rhythmic; it is a voice Erik could listen to for hours, and a voice that is becoming increasingly familiar and close to him. It is most amusing when Charles attempts to mimic his language with his own accent, botching the syllables and pronouncing prefixes and suffixes with too light or too heavy a hand; for one who is a telepath, Erik finds it astonishing that Charles cannot simply translate others’ languages. Thinking of this suddenly, he interrupts Charles mid-sentence in reference to it.

“I could tell I was beginning to bore you with my lecture,” Charles says, smiling amusedly, shifting a pillow pressing uncomfortably against his side and tucking a foot beneath him. “In all honesty, I was boring myself. But in response to your question… haven’t I answered this before, Erik?”

Erik twiddles his thumbs together. “I wouldn’t ask if I already knew the answer,” he says, aiming for nonchalance, but it sounds as though he’s questioning himself. Charles gives him a knowing look but leans forward slightly, curling his hands together and clearing his throat in preparation as he plucks together a suitable answer. He remains quiet for so long that Erik wonders if he’s going to answer at all.

“Everyone’s minds sound the same to me,” he says at last. “The way a brain speaks or thinks is universal. Thoughts aren’t differentiated by culture or race. The human mind is… well, I hear them just as anyone else’s. But in terms of uniqueness or individuality, I can pick out whom that mind’s voice belongs to, especially if I’ve heard it before.”

“So… we’re all the same?” Erik realizes he must sound disappointed because Charles immediately looks up. He tries for gentle reassurance at first, then leans back, considering something.

Erik is surprised when Charles slips off his seat and kneels in front of him, both hands extended upwards. “May I?” the telepath queries, a question blossoming in the depths of his unnaturally young sapphire eyes. _Twenty-four_ , flits through his mind, but from where, Erik knows not.

Cautious, Erik hesitates for a moment before leaning forward. Charles applies a gentle touch to either side of his head and takes a steadying breath. “I don’t have to ask, do I?” the telepath suddenly says, a smile gentling the concentrated shape of his mouth. Erik has no idea what he’s talking about, and his surprise is renewed when Charles murmurs, “I’m grateful that you’ve placed as much trust in my hands as you have. I never would have expected it if I knew you any less than I already do.”

“My trust is hard to come by,” Erik answers quietly, averting his gaze from the sharpness in Charles’. He’s slightly uncomfortable, discussing such a tender matter in such close of range to the telepath. Focusing on the light pressure at his temples, he closes his eyes. “Now what?” he asks, changing the subject to firmer ground.

“Oh. You haven’t noticed me darting around in there yet?” Charles sounds honestly surprised. “You were expecting it to hurt, weren’t you?”

“Charles….” Erik feels it then, a slight waver in his mind, a little like a hand waving hello. He focuses on the wavering sensation and Charles grunts slightly. Erik opens his eyes. “What is it?”

“You’ve pinpointed where I am,” Charles explains. His eyes are firmly shut. “You don’t realize it, but you’re pushing me out.” He smiles suddenly. “It isn’t common, that someone can feel where I am in their mind. Close your eyes, Erik. Relax.” _You know I won’t hurt you… purposefully._

“Am I supposed to be relieved?” he asks, though he obeys without objection. He loosens his grip on the waver and Charles releases a faint sigh.

It’s an unusual experience, to have memories stirred up by another’s whim. Some he flinches from, others he wonders at. Charles pauses at one particular memory but Erik is unable to tell which one it is; the telepath has somehow shielded himself and, determined to see what Charles is so absorbed in, Erik forces his way through the shivering wall in his mind and comes to a startled standstill, his throat closing in fear.

The dark-haired boy lays on the table, his wrists and ankles shackled by wood and leather. His skin is cruelly marred and so horribly pale, translucent and thin, the blue veins beneath pulsing lifeblood at the frantic beat of the boy’s heart. Erik steps from the corner and into the room, sterile and reeking of fear-sweat and iodine. Charles stands beside the table, staring down in unconcealed distress at the boy, and though Erik sees his hands are tucked firmly in his trouser pockets, they are curled into fists. Charles looks away from the boy to Erik, pale face devoid of expression, but from where Erik digs his nails into the armrests of the chair, all he can hear is the rattle of Charles’ frightened gasps at his feet, echoing those of the boy’s.

Across from them, with a sudden bang, the door opens and Sebastian Shaw – _Klaus Schmidt_ – walks into the room with a smile on his face, the lights reflecting off of his eyeglasses. The bloodcurdling shriek rings off the walls and Erik pries his head free from Charles’ tightening clutch, shaking with white terror. He stares down at Charles, the memory bleeding into his mind’s eye, and a surge of blinding rage brings him to his feet. He storms away from the telepath, still motionless on the carpet, and snatches a glass, filling it with the first bottle of alcohol he touches. It burns all the way down.

“Erik…” Charles sounds so wounded, so broken.

“Don’t pity me, Charles,” Erik snarls, swinging around. “Don’t you _dare_ pity me!”

“I don’t pity you,” the telepath murmurs weakly. “I… I’ve lost your trust, haven’t I?” The question is posed as rhetorical, as though he’s already presumed and accepted the answer that Erik hasn’t even thought to give. Erik slams the glass down, barely keeping from shattering it; striding across the room, he bends to hoist Charles to his feet. His eyes are too wide, glassy from the cruelty he’d only begun to witness, disturbed to his very core at seeing and experiencing glimpses of memories that continue to feed Erik’s hatred to this day. Erik can feel the picture Charles’ thoughts are forming – and it strikes him that Charles, who had likely never even been in a bar fight, had just become witness to something he could never fully understand but was abruptly forced to.

If anyone pitied anyone, Erik pitied Charles. He would have never wished his experiences on anyone, and he felt sick, knowing that the last person he would ever wish such pain on now stood in the same overturned boat as he.

“How can you bear to live with years of such horrible suffering?” Charles asks hollowly. Erik’s hands reflexively tighten on Charles’ arms, as do the telepath’s. “How do you find the peace to sl…” he breaks off, throat thickening in anguish.

“I thought you said you knew everything about me?” Erik murmurs.

“I didn’t know _this_ ,” Charles forces the words out between his teeth. “I have never felt it as you have. I’ve only looked in on your memories as a witness, not by melding to your mind.”

“Why did you look, then?”

“Human nature,” Charles answers, an ironic grin twisting his lip.

“But we are not,” Erik counters. “Tell me, how are we better if we are no different than them – the _‘Homo sapiens’,_ as you so affectionately call them?”

_Erik… how do you forget? How do you keep going, as you have, all these years?_

“I no longer see my past as a weakness,” Erik says. “It fuels my anger, drives me onwards.”

“And when Shaw is dead?” There’s a subtle rise in Charles’ tone; he’s cast off the numb of his initial shock, and a familiar azure fire is beginning to ignite in the depths of his hard gaze. “Then what, _Erik?_ What happens at the end of all this?”

Stiffening in defense, Erik curtly answers, “I’ll worry about that when the time comes.” He releases Charles’ arms, hasty in his longing to drop the subject and pretend none of this had ever happened. Charles is still clutching him, as though he is a vase ready to tip and break, but Erik cannot bring himself to tell him to back off. Relying on the contact of Charles’ fingers through his cashmere shirt, he broadens his mind until he feels the unusual magnetism of the telepath’s mind connecting with his. _Who’s the telepath now?_ Erik wonders with dry amusement.

 _That only happened because we’re touching,_ comes the biting answer. _What do you want me in here for?_

“I want you to find the answers that will satisfy you. You’re astoundingly hard to please, but I guess that comes with all boys with a gentle rearing?”

_That is not fair, Erik._

“Of _course_ it isn’t fair, Charles,” Erik reaches up, mirroring Charles’ earlier actions and pressing his index and middle fingers to the telepath’s temples. Charles gasps and shudders, and for a moment Erik has no idea where he is. The sitting room has vanished – or, more correctly, as Erik glances around – the absence of light has faded their present surroundings to a dim resemblance.

“Your mind is full of so much pain,” Charles says. Erik looks around. He cannot see any sign of the telepath, but he can hear him as though his voice is his own, coming from within his own head. “You don’t want me to be in here.”

“Or perhaps I’m tired of facing this on my own?” Erik suggests, casting a glance at the darkened corners of the room. He finds that if he concentrates hard enough, he can feel Charles’ grip on his arms and the smoothness of the skin over his temples under his fingertips.

“You do not trust me.” It is not an accusation. It’s more of an observance. The resignation in the telepath’s tone is heavy. The dim light coming from above is concealed; Erik looks up and watches as heavy drapes cascade down in heavy waves, falling around him – an image to Charles’ words. Erik flinches as the drapes suddenly become bundles of unforgiving barbed wire, and further produces a cry from him as crimson seeps from the shadows they cast.

“At this point, I trust no one,” Erik says once he’s steadied his nerves. “But I never said I didn’t trust you.”

The barbed wire snaps upwards, forming deadly, arching walls above his head. The barbs twist inward, dangerously close to his face. Erik knows it is not real, that it is merely an illusion created by his own mind. He lifts a hand and uses his powers to tear an opening in the wire. It complies, squealing in protest. Erik steps free of the cage and turns, twisting and melting it into a harmless ball of steel.

Unexpectedly, the ball liquefies and reforms into the shape of a man. The steel shifts, a mirror in which Erik’s reflection is distorted, until he is standing across from Charles. The steel representation of him wears a sad mask. “I promised I wouldn’t bring you harm.”

“I know.”

“Then why do you still hold trust for me in here?” The steel hand extends, a fingertip gently prodding over Erik’s heart. Erik reaches up, wrapping his fingers around the representation of Charles’ hand and bringing the knuckles to his lips – a wordless answer in so simple of a motion, yet it holds all the meaning Erik can muster. The steel is cold, not unbearably so; he might be imagining it, but the metal is warming.

“Erik…” Charles voice is softer, no longer in the cavity of his mind but in close distance. Erik’s eyes slide open, casting the afternoon glow from outside the mansion’s windows into the shadows lurking in his mind. The telepath has released him, uncertainty flickering across his face. His deer-in-the-headlights stare brings a curl of amusement to Erik’s mouth.

“I have no doubt you’ve found your answers?”

A blush turns Charles’ pale cheeks red and he ducks his head, tilting his chin down. Erik doesn’t have to have his powers to suspect the manner of thoughts circling in the telepath’s head. “Perhaps…” he begins hoarsely. “Perhaps I’ve found more than I bargained for.”

Erik pulls his fingers from Charles’ temples and uses one to tilt Charles head up so he will look at him. He searches those clouded blue eyes as he asks, with no small amount of concern, “Do _you_ trust me, Charles?”

 _Yes._ The answer is abrupt and full of certainty, flowing between them, pressing on his mind before the telepath can even move his lips. It’s sincere, bountiful with truth, brimming with anticipation and fear and joy.

“We’ll face this storm together,” Charles proposes, his voice coming stronger. “I trust that you already knew that, though.”

“My trust is hard to come by,” Erik repeats his earlier words; seeing a flare of recognition, he adds, “but it seems it’s already resting in your hands.”


End file.
